Newsletter

Posted July 1, 2012 05:00 pm - Updated July 1, 2012 06:19 pm

The Editor's Desk: Who should have a say?

WHO SHOULD HAVE A SAY?: Although he does it somewhat obliquely, Kevan Williams, who writes a column on development for Flagpole magazine, the local alternative weekly, raises an important issue in his June 27 column on the admittedly interesting news that a master plan for downtown Athens now appears to be a distinct possibility.

In comments on the offer by Jack Crowley of the University of Georgia College of Environment and Design to develop a plan, Williams wonders whether there are any guarantees that any eventual plan “isn’t just the work of a single person.”

There are, Williams notes, “many ... variables that define downtown as something other than a development site. There are the dishwashers, bartenders and line cooks; musicians and artists and baristas; studiers, partiers and procrastinators; panhandlers and street preachers and a global network of expats who all love this city and call it home, even when they haven’t been back in years.”

It’s my understanding that, if Crowley is retained to develop a downtown master plan, there will be ample opportunity for public input, including whatever the “dishwashers, bartender and line cooks” etc., etc., etc., that Williams lists might want to say.

I am, though, at a loss — just as I was when any number of “expats” were sounding off a few months back on the mixed-use development proposed for the eastern edge of downtown Athens — as to why people who haven’t lived here for a while (whether a month, a year, a decade) and aren’t likely ever to return, except maybe to visit, should have a place at the table in any discussion of a downtown master plan.

And, on a related note, I’m wondering if Williams’ definition of “expats” includes the thousands of University of Georgia football fans who descend upon Athens for a few weekends in the fall. Just for the sake of argument, I’d contend that those folks, who return to the city on a regular basis — and spend money here — are more entitled to a voice in a downtown master plan than those who might merely wistfully remember the city where they spent, and maybe misspent, some of their youth.

And I’m betting that the legions of UGA football fans, if they were inclined to weigh in on a downtown master plan, would be decidedly less upset about the possibility of chain restaurants and a big-box store encroaching on the downtown area than other “expats.”

The larger point here, folks, is that no matter what image of downtown Athens’ future is held by whatever subset of people with an interest in that future, the downtown area will be shaped far more by zoning decisions, infrastructure improvements — and certainly not least, by the people willing to invest their time and capital in downtown-based enterprises (whatever they might be) — than by people gathered in a meeting room trying to paint a cohesive vision with dozens of different brushes.

TSPLOST CONCERNS: At last week’s meeting of the newspaper’s editorial advisory board — a wide-ranging group of people chosen largely by the publisher to help guide our efforts to provide you with the kinds of news and commentary you want and need — it became apparent that the board felt as if we needed to provide you with far more information on, and analysis of, the July 31 referendum on a regional 1 percent sales tax to fund a variety of transportation projects.

I’ll be starting that effort within a matter of days. In the meantime, if there are any questions or concerns about the upcoming Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum that you’d like to see addressed here or on the Banner-Herald’s news pages, email me at jim.thompson@onlineathens.com and I’ll try to get the answers that you need to cast an informed vote on the tax.